Daniel Patterson - Biography

Biography

Patterson was born on Long Island, New York. His father, John Patterson, was a younger brother of Walter Patterson, who was the first Royal Governor of Prince Edward Island (then named St. John's Island). John and Walter came to America in the 1750s from Ramelton or Rathmullan, County Donegal, Ireland, and served in the British Army in the French and Indian War. Daniel Patterson's mother, Catherine Livingston, was a daughter of the "Third Lord of the Manor" of Livingston, Robert Livingston (1708–1790) (also see Livingston family). James Duane, a respected lawyer, patriot, New York politician, and judge, was Daniel Patterson's uncle (by marriage to Patterson's aunt, his mother's sister Mary Livingston).

As acting midshipman, he joined sloop of war Delaware, June 11, 1799, to cruise against French privateers and warships in the West Indies to August 1800. Appointed Midshipman, U.S. Navy, August 20, 1800 (warrant subsequently altered to take rank from date of his original entry, June 11, 1799). After the war, was one of the Midshipmen retained in the Navy under the Peace Establishment Act, signed by President Adams in one of his last official acts, on March 3, 1801. On close of the Quasi-War with France, he resumed nautical studies, then had blockade duty off Tripoli in famed Constellation and Philadelphia. He fell prisoner upon capture of Philadelphia on October 13, 1803, and remained a captive of the Barbary pirates until the American victory over Tripoli in 1805.

Upon returning home, he spent much of his following years on station at New Orleans, Louisiana, where he took command after the outbreak of the War of 1812. On September 16, 1814, Patterson raided the base of the pirate Jean Laffite at Barataria, Louisiana, capturing six schooners and other small craft. In that same month, he refused Andrew Jackson's request to send his few naval units to Mobile Bay where Patterson knew they would be bottled up by a superior British fleet. Foreseeing British designs against New Orleans almost two months before their attack, Patterson, not Jackson, was the first to prepare to defend the city. The victory resulted as much from his foresight and preparations as from Jackson's able fighting. His little fleet delayed the enemy until reinforcements arrived, then gave artillery support in defense of the entrenchments from which Jackson was never driven.

Patterson, highly commended by Jackson, received a note of thanks from Congress, and was promoted to Captain on February 28, 1815. Patterson remained on the southern stations until 1824 when he became fleet captain and commander of flagship USS Constitution in Commodore John Rodgers' Mediterranean Squadron.

Returning home in 1828, he was appointed one of the three Navy commissioners. He commanded the Mediterranean Squadron from 1832–1836. He then took command of the Washington Navy Yard in 1836, an office he held until his death at Wilmington, New Jersey, August 25, 1839. Daniel Todd Patterson and his wife are buried in Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C.

A rare book, The Life of Gould, an Ex-Man-of-War's Man, by Roland Gould (1867), noted on a website of the Navy Department Library at the Washington Navy Yard, purportedly contains a first-person account of the death of Commodore Patterson.